"When they bring normal tyres with good grip, we finish the tyre in two or three laps. When they bring harder tyres we finish the tyre in eight or nine laps but we go very slow."

The double world champion's criticisms echo those of other drivers this year - Force India's Sergio Perez said earlier this month that the harder tyres this year were "embarrassing" for F1 because the back-of-the grid cars were slower than the fastest GP2 support-race cars.

Alonso: Mr Consistency

Monaco marked Fernando Alonso's 20th straight race without a win, but in that time he has:

Completed
every
race

Secured
seven
podium finishes

Finished in the top five on
15
occasions

Only
once
finished out of the top 10

Alonso added: "This is what we have - it is the same for everybody. The tyre is what it is and what it has been for the last four years unfortunately."

Pirelli's remit when it came into F1 in 2011 was to provide tyres that degraded rapidly and forced teams to make at least two pit stops in a race.

This year the company has chosen to supply more conservative tyres because it was worried about the potential effect of the greater torque of the new turbo hybrid engines.

Pirelli declined to comment on Alonso's latest criticism, saying: "Pirelli prefers not to reply to remarks which have not been made directly to us. The only direct comments we received so far are positive."

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